Europe in Flames: The Crisis of the Thirty Years War

by John Matusiak

`War,' wrote Cardinal Richelieu, `is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men'. Yet the prelate's mournful observation scarcely begins to encapsulate the full complexity and unspeakable horror of the greatest man-made calamity to befall Europe before the twentieth century. Claiming far more lives proportionately than either the First or Second World `War,' wrote Cardinal Richelieu, `is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men'. Yet the prelate's...